Agenda Setting

Agenda Setting. To quickly sum it up, it's when the media comes across a piece (or a few pieces) of reality. The media then thinks: What do I want to be the most prominent of these? What do I want people to think of as the most important?

This is made even more understandable by the following picture:

See Bottom Right section

Basically, the mass media " 'injects' direct influence into the audience." (Harold Lasswell)

A brilliant use of this happened in Germany. Unfortunately, it happened to be pre-/during WWII, and was utilised by Hitler, who also collaborated with Leni Riefenstahl to create a propaganda film.

'...people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it.' -The U.S. Office of Strategic Services on describing Hitler's psychological profile.

Logically, any agenda that a newspaper gives must have a reason. So, yellow journalism papers would obviously print out the wackiness of Justin Bieber's haircut, but neglect to regard the thousands of dying people from cancer, or Greece's possible exit from their current currency. The reverse would be true as well: The Times would print first-page information about the trial of the Bosnian Butcher Ratko Mladic (If you don't know what he's done, look it up (not appropriate for this blog)), but couldn't give a damn whether or not Justin is feeling emasculated by his girlfriend.

However, many news companies focus on events that apply to all of them: Casey Heynes is a good example, his story shared by the trash and class of journalism alike.

So, to reiterate: Agenda Setting = What the media puts forward with the intention of creating their perception of reality and placing it on the viewer/reader, for better or worse.